An unlikely visitor...

Whilst felling the trees we came upon an unexpected visitor. Well camouflaged in the branches of the newly felled tree was a praying mantis, so called because of the typical "prayer-like" stance, although the term is often misspelled as "preying mantis" since mantises are predatory.

I remember being given a poetry book called 'Rainbow Houses' when I was a small child. Among the many beautiful watercolour plates it contained was one of a praying mantis and it was this image that came to mind when we found the poor creature.

It must have been more than a little stunned to find itself at suddenly at ground level having already suffered the vibrations of the chainsaw for the previous 10 minutes. Once I'd taken the chance to photograph it from all angles we set it down in the grass to find a new home. As you can see from the photo, it is pretty well camouflaged amongst the grass.

 

Hopefully the little creature lived to fight another day...... and has not chosen to set up home in one of the trees we've yet to fell!